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Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Over the years, I’ve met a lot of savvy marketers in this
business. Right at the top of the list is Nancy Cohen. She’s also a terrific
teacher with a knack for breaking down information into useful chunks. Last
Saturday, I listened to her lecture at the Florida Mystery Writers Association
meeting, and I wanted to share a few of her ideas about social marketing with you. Most of what you'll see below comes under the heading of, "Who knew?" and the answer of course is "Nancy did!"

Put up an author page on Amazon for each foreign site (i.e. UK, Australia).

Consider becoming an Amazon affiliate so that when people purchase your books from your website, you receive a referral fee.

Create an Amazon book carousel from your Author Central account.

Remember that people who visit your blog might not visit your website and vice versa.

Give blog readers a way to contact you via email.

Consider writing about writing! Information on writing has generated the most blog hits for Nancy.

Add your book titles to your Facebook page where it directs you to "Add a project."

Promote a single title on Facebook with this app from BookPulse. http://bookpulse.heroku.com/website/index.html

Monday, April 22, 2013

After I published my blog post on Downton Abbey, Jessica Fellowes and I corresponded. Seems I made some errors, and I'm happy to correct them! Here goes:1. The concept came
about when Jessica's uncle Julian read a book called To Marry an English Lord
by co-authors Gail McColl and Carol McD. Wallace. In the post-Civil War until
the first World War, American heiresses went to England to swap titles for
cash.

JF: Actually, the American heiresses carried on coming until about the end of the 1930s. They began
coming in the 1890s for 50 years.

2. Julian writes the entire script for each episode. In the beginning, they had
a crew of writers, as is usual for such shows, but that didn't work.

JF: No, they have never had a crew of writers. In the first season, on two
episodes (somewhere in the middle), Julian shares the writer credit with one
other writer.

3. Jessica Brown Findlay, who played Sybil, came to Julian and said she wanted
to leave the show. "Do you mean 'leave and come back' or 'leave
permanently'", he asked. She said, "Leave permanently." And he
said, "Sounds like death in childbirth to me!"

4. Many of the characters are patterned after Fellowes family members/friends
of family/or tales told to Julian. For example, a friend came over to Julian's
house in London and said, "I've been cleaning out old papers and I just
came upon the most extraordinary letters. Seems my aunt was at a house party
and a man died in someone's bed. Well, the only way to keep it secret was for
all the women--and they were on one floor as custom demands--to help haul his
body out of that one woman's bedroom and back down the stairs up to his own
bed! Most amazingly, the next day the men were talking about how weak women are!"
As Jessica said, "A problem shared is a problem dumped on other
people."

JCS: Just so all of you know, this did NOT happen at Highclere.JF: Two things, however - the story was read in old diaries, not
letters. Also, I only conjecture that the men might have talked about the women
being shocked at the sudden death (they would almost certainly have all looked
rather tired and shaken the next day) but not knowing they had hauled the body
down corridors. Somehow, just the idea of that made me laugh.

5. The three Crawley sisters represent the three types of women of that era:
Mary wants power and will get it the old fashioned way by marrying it; Sybil
wants power and was willing to be involved in the political system; and Edith
wants anything she can get! (Poor Edith.)

6. Mary is patterned after Julian's mother, and Cora's remarks to her daughter
on her wedding night is the same as Julian's grandmother's to his own mother:
(Paraphrasing here) "You realize there are things an English wife must do.
But no one tells you...it's the most horrific fun!"

JF: Any wife, not an English wife. And terrific fun not horrific!!!JCS: Obviously, I misheard this--and I must say that I wondered if "horrific" was a Briticism that I hadn't heard!

7. The dining room scenes can take 10-12 hours to film because they are filmed
in Highclere Castle's very small dining room. British heartthrob Dan Stevens
(Matthew Crawley) has said that he's learned the hard way not to start a scene
with a bit of chicken in his mouth because after ten hours of chewing chicken
for continuity's sake it's pretty disgusting.

JF: The dining room is large, it's the table that is surprisingly small.

8. The producers and Julian have purposefully held back from putting any
realistic new products in the house and the scenes because even if they were
appropriate for the times, because WHEN they are new, they are jarring to the
viewers.

JF: The art department - not the producers and Julian.

9. In the UK, Downton Abbey is interrupted by commercials. Julian much prefers
that it be viewed the way we see it here in the US.

JF: I don't know that I should say that Julian specifically much prefers it. More
that one gets a pure Downton experience on PBS. (Some things are OK said out
loud to a crowd, not so much written down).

10. O'Brian will not be coming back. She's a copy of a real ladies maid who ran
off an entire family, one by one, so that her mistress died alone and thinking
she'd been deserted by her loved ones.

11. Julian's wife helps him with ideas. She's the one who suggested that Bates
have a limp and be injured. (Wasn't that brilliant?) Just love the relationship
between him and Anna!

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Note: I asked my Facebook peeps to
suggest starting sentences for a Kiki Lowenstein short story. There were so
many terrific ideas that I have decided to try to incorporate more than
one –and write a progressive short story. You'll be reading this as I create
it! Wish me luck!

Note: This short story comes beforeReady, Scrap, Shoot—and Kiki is six weeks pregnant.

Summary: In last four weeks’
installments—Kiki walked into Time in the Bottle only to discover papers
scattered everywhere. Detective Chad Detweiler arrived to pronounce the store
“safe,” but Kiki’s still wondering what’s up. Her co-worker Margit has shown up
and reminded Kiki that she needs a great idea for May to boost their sales. As
she’s pondering what to do, Teresa Alvarez stops in to drop off a gift for
Kiki. Teresa is planning to become a US citizen on May 5, but her joy is
diminished because her cousin Juanita cannot afford the increased fees for
citizenship applications. Seeking to change the subject, Kiki opens her present,
which includes white chocolate tamales and several cascarones, the brightly
colored eggs used to celebrate the arrival of Spring. When Juanita leaves, Kiki
is still stuck with her original problem. She needs to create a special event
and use up all the shredded paper found in the backroom. Plus, now she’s pondering
how to raise money to help Teresa’s sister Juanita, who wants to apply for
citizenship.

By the way, you can read
Installments #1, 2, 3 and 4 by going to older posts on this blog.

Detweiler came by as I was leaving work. His dad had asked him
to drive over to the farm because he needed help with his new computer, and of course, he was willing to go with my blessing. I stood there, hugging him, just looking into his eyes and wondering what he sees.*

My
daughter Anya called to ask if she could spend the night at her grandmother’s
house because she wanted to watch The Game of Thrones on Sheila’s big screen
TV.

“That leaves you and me, girlfriend,” I told Gracie, my
Great Dane.

Since he’s moved in, Detweiler has done most of the
cooking, so I shouldn’t have been surprised to find that all we had in the
refrigerator were six uncooked eggs, a potato, a few broccoli florets, and an onion.
He’s such a fresh-freak that he buys whatever he’s cooking on his way to the
house. I’m a last minute, if-it-slows-down-I’ll-eat-it, sort of girl.

Studying the eggs, I thought about the cascarones. After
washing a craft knife, I opened one end of the shells and dumped the yolks and whites into a
bowl. Next I rinsed the eggshells out and set
them aside to dry in the Styrofoam egg carton.

Then I made myself a frittata and went to bed.

I ate the leftovers the next day for breakfast. I just knew that this day was going to be different; I could feel it in my heart! ** I
still hadn’t conjured up a great idea for our store, but I was in a pretty good
mood when Gracie and I arrived at Time in a Bottle. All that changed in the
blink of an eye when I discovered yet another pile of shredded paper.

“Woof!” Gracie shot
across the backroom floor, jerking her leash out of my hands.

“What on earth?” I ran
after her, noting as I did that the entire floor was covered with torn papers.

“Woof! Woof!” She danced
and pranced on her hind legs, pawing at the metal shelf units. From the top
shelf, a gray head with bright brown eyes peered at us. A squirrel! And he was
not happy we’d invaded his territory.

I went over to the desk
in Dodie’s office and called Critter Control. Once I explained the problem,
they promised to send a man over right away. “Do not engage the rodent, ma’am.
Leave him to us.”

After convincing Gracie
that a dog yummy was a far, far better treat than raw squirrel on the run, I walked her to
the front of the store and turned on my computer. Drat. Now I had more shredded paper
to contend with, a bill coming for squirrel removal, and no idea how to
entertain my scrapbookers.

So I piddled around on
the Internet, deciding to look up the history
of cascarones. There I learned that the idea is thought to have been
brought from Asia by Marco Polo. The trinkets were filled with perfume and to
have one broken over your head is supposed to be “good luck.” Typically these activities are enjoyed at Easter.

But every custom can be
revised to fit the times, can’t it? I wondered to myself. By the time I let
Barney, the Critter Control guy, into our backroom, I had the inkling of a
plan.

“Actually, this is the
pre-party,” I admitted. “We’re going to fill the empty eggshells with homemade
confetti.”

I’d enlisted the help of
five of my best customers for this job. They sat next to me at my work table
awaiting instructions. Over the past few weeks, I’d begged everyone to empty
their eggs gently, rinse out the shells, and drop them off at the store in
their egg cartons. Eventually I collected twenty-five dozen eggshells.
Detweiler and I colored them at home and let them dry. I gathered a variety of
punches and a stack of papers, the same papers that had once been damaged by
the squirrel. (For cleanliness sake, I’d simply cut off the yucky parts,
sprayed them with Lysol, and ta-da! Clean, fresh paper. Or so I hoped!)

Bonnie, Julie Essler,
Angie Folger, Jennifer Moore, and Lisa Brunswick had agreed to help me punch
the papers into bits of confetti. Once we had a nice pile of bits, we spooned
the confetti into our eggs and passed them along to a card table where Anya and
Nicci Moore, Jennifer’s daughter, smoothed and glued bits of tissue paper over the open
ends.

Into ten of the eggs, I
carefully inserted a lottery ticket. Into another ten, there were coupons for
discounts and five received gift certificates.

All in all, the assembly
took about three hours, probably because we were having so much fun.

“See you all tomorrow!”
I said as I escorted my friends to the front door.

#

What
a grand time we had the next night! Twenty-four customers paid $25 a person to come to our
special crop. In exchange for their money, they received supplies for a “make
and take” scrapbook project, and five cascarones each. They could purchase
additional cascarones for a dollar each. I’d priced out the “make and take” projects
so that they wouldn’t cost a lot, but there are always expenses and overhead
that must be considered, so I thought that giving a portion to Teresa was still
fair.

Of course, the $25 fee
also included a great meal! I made chocolate tamales for all our guests, Teresa
brought two pots of her special Mexican rice, and Clancy made the fixings for
tacos. For drinks, I bought margarita flavored Crystal Lite and iced tea. I ate until I thought my tummy would burst.

At the start of the
crop, I had announced that half our proceeds would go to pay for Juanita’s
citizenship application. An hour into the evening, we’d sold all the
cascarones! We had more than enough for Juanita’s application, so I was able to
announce that Time in a Bottle was also donating an additional $100 to Juanita
to help with her expenses.

“But remember, everyone.
You have to promise not to smash your egg until midnight,” I told them. Every
hour that went by, the anticipation grew. My customers were eager to see if
they’d won a gift certificate or a lottery ticket. I’ll admit it was almost as
much fun as Christmas because each woman had a white bowl heaped high with the
brightly colored eggshells.

I’d set six alarm clocks
to go off at the stroke of midnight. Clang-clang-clang! What a clatter they made.

My
customers began to giggle as they slapped their eggshells onto their own
foreheads and later onto the heads of their neighbors.

Of course, Clancy and I
got into the act, too. I slapped a blue egg against the crown of her head. Brightly colored confetti and a lottery ticket floated down.

“Woohooo!” she yelled. “My
turn!”

And with great glee she
smashed an egg against my head. To my shock, a cold gooey trickle slid down my
forehead and dripped off my face.

“What?” I jumped up
from my chair. “Clancy! How could you!”

She stuck her tongue out
at me. “Got you back for that April Fool’s joke!”

Two dozen
cameras clicked at once. My customers had been in on the prank!

Argh. But I had to
laugh. This crop had started with a very, very bad day—and it was ending with a
fun night. Egg-sactly what I’d hoped for!

Friday, April 19, 2013

I have a confession to make--to help me get in the mood to write The Jane Eyre Chronicles, I watch episodes of Downton Abbey. Yes, the period is different, because Death of a Schoolgirl is set in 1820. Death of a Dowager is set in 1821. Downton is nearly one hundred years later, but the sensibility with its emphasis on class and civility is the same. Last week Jessica Fellowes, bestselling author of The Chronicles of Downton Abbey, visited the Tangerine Theatre on Jupiter Island, so naturally I sat in the front row!

Here's all the inside scoop:

1. The concept came about when Jessica's uncle Julian read a book called To Marry an English Lord by co-authors Gail McColl and Carol McD. Wallace. In the post-Civil War until the first World War, American heiresses went to England to swap titles for cash.

2. Julian writes the entire script for each episode. In the beginning, they had a crew of writers, as is usual for such shows, but that didn't work.

3. Jessica Brown Findlay, who played Sybil, came to Julian and said she wanted to leave the show. "Do you mean 'leave and come back' or 'leave permanently'", he asked. She said, "Leave permanently." And he said, "Sounds like death in childbirth to me!"

4. Many of the characters are patterned after Fellowes family members/friends of family/or tales told to Julian. For example, a friend came over to Julian's house in London and said, "I've been cleaning out old papers and I just came upon the most extraordinary letters. Seems my aunt was at a house party and a man died in someone's bed. Well, the only way to keep it secret was for all the women--and they were on one floor as custom demands--to help haul his body out of that one woman's bedroom and back down the stairs up to his own bed! Most amazingly, the next day the men were talking about how weak women are!" As Jessica said, "A problem shared is a problem dumped on other people."

5. The three Crawley sisters represent the three types of women of that era: Mary wants power and will get it the old fashioned way by marrying it; Sybil wants power and was willing to be involved in the political system; and Edith wants anything she can get! (Poor Edith.)

6. Mary is patterned after Julian's mother, and Cora's remarks to her daughter on her wedding night is the same as Julian's grandmother's to his own mother: (Paraphrasing here) "You realize there are things an English wife must do. But no one tells you...it's the most horrific fun!"

Jessica Fellowes

7. The dining room scenes can take 10-12 hours to film because they are filmed in Highclere Castle's very small dining room. British heartthrob Dan Stevens (Matthew Crawley) has said that he's learned the hard way not to start a scene with a bit of chicken in his mouth because after ten hours of chewing chicken for continuity's sake it's pretty disgusting.

8. The producers and Julian have purposefully held back from putting any realistic new products in the house and the scenes because even if they were appropriate for the times, because they are new, they are jarring to the viewers.

9. In the UK, Downton Abbey is interrupted by commercials. Julian much prefers that it be viewed the way we see it here in the US.

10. O'Brian will not be coming back. She's a copy of a real ladies maid who ran off an entire family, one by one, so that her mistress died alone and thinking she'd been deserted by her loved ones.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Note:
I asked my Facebook peeps to suggest starting
sentences for a Kiki Lowenstein short story. There were so many
terrific ideas that I have decided to try to incorporate more than one –and
write a progressive short story. You'll be reading this as I create it! Wish me
luck!

Note:
This short story comes beforeReady, Scrap,
Shoot—and Kiki is six weeks pregnant.

In last three weeks’ installments—Kiki walked into Time in the
Bottle only to discover papers scattered everywhere. Detective Chad Detweiler
arrived to pronounce the store “safe,” but Kiki’s still wondering what’s up.
Her co-worker Margit has shown up and reminded Kiki that she needs a great idea
for May to boost their sales. As she’s pondering what to do, Teresa Alvarez stops in to drop off a
gift for Kiki. Teresa is planning to become a US citizen on May 5, but her joy
is diminished because her cousin Juanita cannot afford the increased fees for
citizenship applications. Seeking to change the subject, Kiki opens her
present.

By the way, you can read Installments #1, 2, and 3 by going to older posts on this blog.

I was stumped. I’d
never heard of cascarones, and as I turned the delicate tissue paper covered
egg around and around in my hand, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Obviously,
this gift required a bit of explanation. Pulling up a stool, I sat down. Teresa
took another stool to sit beside me.

She gently took
my toy away from me. “Each spring in my little town in Mexico, we start to save
eggshells. As we cook, we only open one end, rather than crush them.”

With a finger,
she traced the larger portion of the oval. Now that I was looking more
carefully, I could see that it was covered with tissue paper and not solid. It
was as if someone had done a repair job to the egg!

“I see,” I said,
taking it from her and marveling at the patch job. “This certainly is pretty.
If you put them in a glass bowl on a table, they would make a wonderful
centerpiece.”

“Si, and we do that. But we have another
use for them.” Once again, she took the egg from me.

With a lightning
strike, she smashed the egg into my forehead! I was so taken aback that I
nearly fell off my stool. More shocking was the glitter and confetti that
rained down over my nose! Of course, I’d anticipated a shower of gooey egg
yolks and whites. This was dry. Ticklish. And startling.

“Oh!” I gasped.

She giggled. “Forgive
me, but it’s the best way to explain. They are much fun. Especially so if you
are not familiar with them. The children, they love them so much. But the grownups
think they are fun, too.”

As the confetti
drifted down over my hands and lap, I started laughing. “Well! Thank you for
teaching me something new.”

After Teresa
left, I went back to my work. When I took a bathroom break, I stuck my head in
to check on Margit. She didn’t hear me approach; she was muttering darkly as
she stared at our sales figures. “Kiki, I do not know what we will do. We need
a special event for May. And that paper! It is ruined, I think. With it goes
our profits.”

As I lingered in
the doorway, Clancy came in through the backdoor. She tilted her head to stare
at me. “You’re covered in glitter.”

I explained about
the cascarones.

“I wish I could
have seen the expression on your face when Teresa smashed one on your head,”
said Clancy.

I bit back a
laugh. Clancy was irked with me. For April Fool’s Day, I had tricked her into
believing someone had poured ink all over our cash register. She’d thrown a
hissy fit in front of two customers—and once she learned it was a gag, she’d
been even more angry. Usually, she’s a great sport, but she takes herself a bit
too seriously sometimes, and this (IMHO) was one of them.

Margit shook her
head. “Ja, that would have been
funny.”

But she didn’t
sound amused.

“What’s wrong?”
Clancy asked.

That gave
Margit permission to complain about the shredded paper, the need for more
sales, and the state of the ozone. About halfway through, I walked away. In
general, my philosophy is (as Mert says) that one can never have too many
friends. * But when your friends are nothing but grumps, well, they can go soak
their heads. I started for the refrigerator and then remembered that I could no
longer turn to my most necessary scrapbook supply, a six-pack of Diet Dr
Pepper. ** Now that I was pregnant, I’d sworn off any artificial sweeteners. I
reminded myself that my friends were one of life’s greatest blessings. Why,
just last week, it was cold, dark and pouring rain when I suddenly heard a “Pow!”
as my worn rear tire exploded. Since the highway was deserted, I’d phoned
Clancy and she’d come to my rescue.*** And the week before, I’d had a
terrifying dream that the doctor told me I was having twins! **** When I told
Margit how scary that was, she’d put an arm around me and given me a hug.

Soon I would be
feeling my baby kick inside my swollen belly. ***** And this child would be
born into a wonderful circle of friends.

But why did they
all have to be so grumpy? How come it was always MY responsibility to come
up with a way to make money for our store? But then I shook off my bad mood.
After all, I had nothing to complain about, especially compared to Teresa’s
sister, Juanita. Now being deported, THAT was a problem.

I sighed and sat
down at my work table. There had to be a way I could fix everything. Okay,
ALMOST everything. All I needed was to think…

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Note:
I asked my Facebook peeps to suggest starting
sentences for a Kiki Lowenstein short story. There were so many
terrific ideas that I have decided to try to incorporate more than one –and
write a progressive short story. You'll be reading this as I create it! Wish me
luck!

Note:
This short story comes beforeReady, Scrap,
Shoot—and Kiki is six weeks pregnant.

In last two weeks’ installments—Kiki walked into Time in the
Bottle only to discover papers scattered everywhere. Detective Chad Detweiler
arrived to pronounce the store “safe,” but Kiki’s still wondering what’s up.
Her co-worker Margit has shown up and reminded Kiki that she needs a great idea
for a crop in May. As she’s pondering what to do, Teresa Alvarez stops in to drop off a
gift for Kiki. Teresa is planning to become a US citizen on May 5.

“Yes, do open the
gift,” said Teresa, but her smile faltered just a little. Her lovely brown eyes swam with tears. As
always, she dressed simply in inexpensive jeans and a colorful knit blouse. But
large gold hoops swayed in her ears and a silk flower caught her hair so that
it was pinned up over one ear. Her distinctive fragrance was vanilla, so warm
and wholesome that I couldn’t help but breath deeply and enjoy it.

“What’s wrong?” I
asked.

“It is nothing.”
She brushed away my question with a tiny gesture of her hand.

As tempting as it
was to open the bag and dive right into the gift, I hesitated. “Come on,
Teresa. What’s up? Come on over and sit down. Would you like a Coke?”

“A Diet Dr Pepper?”

I laughed, “You
know that we stock those, although I’m envious because I’m drinking water these
days. Have a seat at my work table.”

After we’d had a
sip of our drinks, I tried to steer us back to the topic at hand. “So what’s
bothering you, Teresa? I know it’s been a long road to citizenship. You’re
almost there, and we’re all very happy for you.”

“Si, but my sister Juanita planned to
apply with me, and she can’t. The cost of the application has gone up. So much!
It is now $680! And if it is denied, she cannot get it back. Instead, she
thinks she will only renew her green card. That will cost her $450 and those
are almost never turned down. She says she cannot afford to gamble so much. I
say, but you could be sent back to Mexico! Yes, she says but if she goes, at
least she will go take a little money with her to her family. Her husband has
diabetes and has not worked in two years.”

I had no idea it
cost even to apply for citizenship, so I sat there feeling stunned and sad. My
own sister Amanda had recently re-entered my life. I counted her a great
blessing. She and I had both grown up in the years we’d been semi-estranged. We
realized that we’d harbored mistaken impressions of each other’s life. Of
course, my mother had been particularly unhelpful in reuniting us.

I blinked and my mind flashed on a vision of my
cute cop-of-a-boyfriend, Chad Detweiler.* I remembered something he’d said just
two mornings ago, “I only have five socks here.** But knowing you, you’ll take
that odd one and make something wonderful with it. That’s what I love about
you, Kiki. You always make lemons into lemonade.”

“That’s me. Trouble follows me everywhere, so
I’ve gotten a lot of practice at turning frowns into smile,” I’d said as I
stood on tiptoe to kiss him. *** As I looked into his eyes, I could feel that
he was just as in love with me as I was with him. ****

“Good old Mom. Even if it was a dark and stormy
night, she’d find a way to be happy about it.***** These days, she’s a regular
Suzy Sunshine,” my daughter Anya had chimed in and we all laughed.

“Yes, I do think I’m all that!” I’d yelled as I
slammed the door and started my shower. ****** I could hear Chad and Anya
giggling on the other side, and it pleased me to no end.

But a soft hiccup
from Teresa brought me back to the here and now as she shed a few more tears. I
patted her hand, a totally useless gesture, but what else could I do?

“And my sister?
She is expecting. It makes me so sad because my children will not grow up with
hers if she is sent back.”

Call me hormonal,
because I am, but I burst into tears at that.

“You better open
the bag,” she said as she wiped her face. “Because you need to cheer up. I did
not mean to upset you, Kiki. Your little
baby will suffer if you worry too much, my friend.”

“Okay.” I never
needed much coaxing to tear open a present. This time I lifted one crumpled
sheet of tissue paper after another out and set them carefully on my work
table. They formed a happy rainbow at my elbow. Near the bottom of the bag, I
found a small tinfoil packet that I unwrapped carefully. Inside were a dozen
white chocolate tamales.” I squealed with delight. “Love these!”

“I know you do!
There is more.” She clapped her hands together in shared delight.

I lifted out more
crumpled pieces until I found a Styrofoam egg carton taped shut.

Monday, April 1, 2013

After many months of labor pains (and I mean that more literally than you can imagine), I'm celebrating the birth of the second book in The Jane Eyre Chronicles--Death of a Dowager.
Yep, my editor actually was working on the manuscript when she went into labor! How's that for dedication?

And so..ta-da! Here's the scoop...

In Death of a Dowager, Charlotte Bronte’s classic continues
when a married Jane Eyre finds herself in possession of a love letter written
by King George IV—and a mysterious murder with connections to that note
threatens not only the lives of Jane’s loved ones but also the peace and
stability of the realm!

CONTEST

Be a lucky commenter (you can use the questions below as a jump-start) and you might win one of three wonderful prizes! (Winners chosen by random number generator.)